Upstox reimagined.
Rebranding an Indian fintech giant for a global audience.
Client
Upstox, RKSV
Securities Pvt Ltd.
Expertise
Logo Design
Visual Identity
Brand Strategy
Heading
Logo design
Logo animations
Visual design
Brand Guidelines
One of the largest fintech companies in India, Upstox is a trading platform that has shown tremendous growth over the past decade. As the next step in their growth story, the team had a brand new product under wraps, built and designed completely from the ground up.
The revamped product was designed to feel elegant and mature, featuring a delicate display serif, a detailed art style, and an earthy palette. The apps looked great — but nothing like the brand at all, which was sorely in need of an overhaul. With the launch date drawing ever closer, the founders decided that it was time to rebrand.
Getting started -
Defining our approach
An integrated logomark
Custom ‘U’ logos are incredibly common. We decided to create a logo that integrated the logomark and type, making it far more distinct, and also easier to use.
Responsive branding
The Upstox logo would be used on canvases of all shapes and sizes. Designing it to be responsive would ensure that it scaled gracefully across contexts.
A strong foundation
Upstox was growing fast, and had big plans. The logo we designed needed to work right now, and also lay the foundation for an ecosystem of brands in the future.
Upstox needed to fit seamlessly into the international market and also stand apart. The new brand required a sharp, minimal logo that made room for growth, extended easily, and embraced motion.
Repositioning the brand -
The up story.
The promise of Upstox is growth, and the word ‘up’ captures that far more instinctively, cohesively, than any charts, graphs, or numbers can. ‘Up’ is universal, a direction that everyone aligns with, and a story everyone wants to be a part of.
‘Up’ also integrates naturally with the name Upstox, at the most basic, linguistic level, and would serve as a prefix for any future sub-brands or products. This meant that any logo designed to highlight this concept would become a blueprint for the rest of the Upstox ecosystem in the future.
With ‘up’ defined as the brand story, we began our logo explorations. The exercise now had a clear, narrow focus — to capture ‘upness’ in a simple, distinct way.
Building the logo -
The arc + up
The old Upstox logo became our starting point for the new identity. We stripped away all additional detail from the logomark, all the downward movement, and combined it with an 'up' that integrates right into the logotype.
The arc slots neatly into place at the fore of the 'u', creating a custom letterform that is a modern take on a decades-old way of writing — on paper, in a cursive hand. A custom 'U' turns readily into a custom 'up', integrating tightly into the logotype, for the current brand and for all future products.
Designing a responsive brand.
Since the Upstox logo would find its way onto canvases of all shapes, sizes, and mediums, we designed it to be flexible and fully responsive.
The full logo unit, to be used primarily in all communications where the logo is required to be shown in full, and when plenty of horizontal space is available.
The ‘up’, to be used in small spaces, and where the brand is likely to be well established.
Eg. app icons, social media profile pictures.
The arc, to be used initially only as a graphic element to add an Upstox flavour to all communication. Later, this could be the smallest logo unit.
Visual Identity -
Playing with the pieces.
Upstox already had a colour palette and typography swatch for the new product. We were tasked with creating a visual language for the brand that played well with these, while also defining clear rules for their usage beyond the app.
Brand Identity -
Bringing the brand to life.
Upstox’s visual language relies heavily on confident, playful usage of the arc. The arc as a shape is minimal enough to latch on to the word 'up' without overwhelming it, and graphic enough that it can liven up the brand everywhere you might encounter it — in the Upstox app, on a TV ad, flanking the boundaries of a cricket pitch.
The impact -
A brand that scales and adapts.
Upstox came to us because they had a new app to launch, big plans for the future — and a brand that accommodated neither. They needed to face an international audience without alienating a loyal Indian user base, and prepare for more expansion in the future as well.
The new brand bridges this gap between what is and what will be. It fits the elegant, mature product design, but plays just as well with Upstox’s ongoing Indian campaigns. The stage is set for the brand to grow with the business — as Upstox launches products in more markets, and evolves into an ecosystem of brands.
Chitrang is a wizard when it comes to delivering high-quality work under tight deadlines. His team had a very creative approach to the problem that resulted in a fantastic outcome. Chitrang's attention to detail, ability to navigate through ambiguous situations, and thinking beyond & bigger made this partnership a big success.
Over to you. What's your big idea? Let's bring it to life.
